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How NBA stars like Durant, Draymond and LeBron are helping create hip hop stars

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It’s a humid East Coast night in August of 2011 and Kevin Durant is ready to spit his verse.

The seven-foot forward is crunched inside a makeshift studio buried in his uncle’s basement in Fort Washington, Maryland. As he begins to read the lyrics on the tiny screen of his iPhone 4, Durant’s alternative occupation is beginning to crystallize.

Sitting just off in the distance is an up-and-coming rapper named Dave East, whom Durant has known since the two met at an all-state photoshoot when Durant was a senior at Montrose Christian and East was a sharpshooter at Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, Maryland.